


An Auspicious Beginning

by Tamari



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-09
Updated: 2012-04-09
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:44:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tamari/pseuds/Tamari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aly should be with her tutor, but she has places to go and people to see - or maybe, she just wants to sit on the roof and bathe in the sunshine, with good company of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Auspicious Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the April challenge at Tamora Pierce Writing Challenges. Prompt: New Beginnings. Also for a request of Aly/Neal.

"Good morning," he says.

Aly gives him a cursory glance and looks down, kicking her bare heels against the scorching wood. "Hi," she replies. "What are you doing up here?"

"I could ask the same of you," he says. "Aren't you supposed to be with your tutor?"

She scowls. "I know enough about wars to last me a lifetime, thanks very much. If they taught me something useful…" she trails off, leaning her strawberry-blonde hair back so that the sun soaks into her lightly tanned skin.

"Sometimes you just have to learn things you don't want to," he says, his eyes following the curve of her neck and- he snaps his head to the side and tries to hide his glowing blush from her knowing eyes.

"And you, Neal?" she asks casually. "What unwelcome things have you learnt?"

He flushes. "It's not… I don't know."

"How convincing," she says with a snort. "I've certainly seen the error of my ways."

Neal shakes his head and stretches his long legs so they hang off the edge of the wooden wall. "You're incorrigible, my dear."

She laughs. "Am I? Your dear, I mean?"

His head snaps over to her. Aly looks back at him with a hopeful smile stretching her mouth.

"Do you think that's a good idea? Starting something new like this?" he asks.

"Yes," Aly says, and grabs his collar to pull him into a scorching kiss.

He promptly falls off the roof.

"Are you okay?" she shrieks, jumping off after him and landing neatly on her feet.

Neal groans and sits up. "I'm a squire, Aly. A fall off of a shed isn't going to maim me!"

"Maybe it should," she retorts. "Then you'd learn not to fall anymore."

He starts to argue. "Are you sure that's logical? Because I read that-"

Aly sits down next to him and pushes his brown hair back over his widow's peak. He swallows at the expression on her face, and she leans close.

Of course she'd be the only one to figure out how to shut him up and make him like it. He must say it's an auspicious beginning to their relationship.


End file.
